


the curse of the enterprise

by AlmondRose



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates, Alternate Universe - Pirates of the Caribbean Fusion, F/F, First Kiss, Long-Haired Spock (Star Trek), M/M, Romance, T'hy'la, Vulcan Kisses, you don’t need to know about potc to get this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25969129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: when Nyota Uhura finds herself kidnapped, her friend T'Pring will stop at nothing--even teaming up with notorious pirate, James T Kirk--to save her.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, T'Pring/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 40
Kudos: 85





	1. Nyota

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is set in the 18th century yes there are vulcans no i won't explain ❤️

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this, of course, could be aos or tos since i'm a firm believer in never mentioning what color kirk's eyes are in order to appeal to the masses, but i feel like this is probably more inspired by aos? but it really doesn't matter because they're pirates wearing corsets and stabbing people with swords so just picture whoever you want
> 
> when i started writing this, my sibling asked if they'd be space pirates, which was a good and fair question, but sadly the answer is no, i just have vulcans running around the 18th century caribbean, which is actually hilarious, if you think about it,

The smell of the salty sea air.

A song, the words scandalous and exciting. A scathing voice, grumbling that women shouldn’t be on ships, that it’s bad luck to even think of pirates while sailing. 

Her father, confused and kind. A handsome lieutenant, his hand on her shoulder. 

The smell of fire, the destroyed, half-sinking ship. 

A girl in the water. 

“What’s your name?”

“T’Pring.”

A coin on a pendant, an alien symbol stamped into the salty-wet gold---

Nyota Uhura wakes up with a gasp, rolling over in bed and rubbing at her eyes, reaching for the drawers beside her bed. She opens the top drawer and pulls back the false bottom, unearthing the golden medallion and inspecting it by the light of the single candle by her bed. Nyota has never seen anything like it, and she turns it over in her hand just as her father starts pounding on the door. 

“Just a minute!” she calls, and she gets out of bed, nearly tripping on her duvet, and pulling the medallion over her head, shoving it under her nightdress, and shouldering on her dressing gown. “Come in!”

Her father pushes open her bedroom door, letting in a flurry of maids. They scurry to her curtains, pulling them open to release the blinding morning sun. 

“Still abed at this hour?” Nyota’s father asks, laughing at her a little. She grins guiltily, thinking of the dream. “It’s a beautiful day--I’ve brought you a gift.”

“For what occasion?” Nyota asks, walking over to him and the long box that almost certainly holds a dress inside. He lifts off the top of the box and she gasps, pulling out the beautiful dress. “Oh, Father!”

“Does a father need an occasion to dote upon his daughter?” he asks, preening as she coos over the dress. Her maids usher her behind the changing partition and begin helping her into it. “Does it fit?”

“I’m not sure,” Nyota admits, inhaling sharply as her maids begin lacing something up around her toso. It’s a corset, Nyota is sure. “This is more of a contraption than a dress.”

“I’m told it’s the latest fashion in London.”

“Women in London must’ve learnt not to breathe,” Nyota says, gasping, as they finish lacing it up and begin actually putting on the dress. 

“Well,” her father says after an awkward moment. “I had hoped you would wear the dress to the promotion today.”

“I’m already wearing it, I might as well,” Nyota says, as the pair of maids finish dressing her. 

“He is fond of you, you know,” her father says. Nyota resolutely ignores him. 

“Sir, there’s a messenger here for you,” the familiar voice of their butler says, and when Nyota is done getting dressed and having her curls set properly in their right place, she rushes out of her room to see who it is. 

From the landing over the steps that lead into the foyer, Nyota can see her father talking to T’Pring, who is wearing a simple dress with her arms tucked neatly behind her back. Nyota’s father is holding up a sword to the light--T’Pring is the favorite messenger of the blacksmith. 

“T’Pring!” Nyota exclaims eagerly, and the woman looks up, startled. “It’s so good to see you.” Is it her imagination, or does T’Pring flush? Nyota hikes up her dress and makes her way down the stairs. “I dreamt about you last night, you know.”

“As we have not seen each other today, I would not know that,” T’Pring says. 

“It was about the day we met--do you remember?” Nyota asks, and T’Pring inclines her head. 

“Indeed,” she says. 

“Nyota, I would be inclined to let you and your friend catch up, but we really must be getting ready for the ceremony,” Nyota’s father says, and she nods at him, disappointment curdling in her gut. T’Pring is only a messenger. She wouldn’t be invited to the ceremony. 

Nyota smiles apologetically at T’Pring. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

“It is of no consequence,” T’Pring says. “I am sure we will see each other shortly, Miss Uhura.”

“How many times must I ask you to call me Nyota?” Nyota asks, and T’Pring says, “At least once more, Miss Uhura.”

Nyota grins at her, and her father ushers her out the door and towards their awaiting carriage. Nyota waves over her shoulder and watches T’Pring watch them go.

In the carriage, Nyota’s father talks about something--the soon-to-be-Commodore, Nyota thinks--while she puts a hand over her breast, feeling the cold metal of the medallion against her skin under her dress. 

She’s still not sure why she stole it from around T’Pring’s neck, all those years ago--except that Nyota has always been interested in two things, languages and pirates, and something about the Vulcan pendant had reminded her of both. 

Although T’Pring and Nyota were quite close for girls of different stations, T’Pring had never told her why she had been crossing the seas, why she was on Earth, nor anything about her life prior to the shipwreck she’d been rescued in. Nyota knew that her friend had experienced some mental turmoil when they’d first reached Yorktown but that was all. She often wondered what secrets T’Pring held--but it doesn’t matter. No matter how much Nyota may want to know, she will have to marry a man equal to her station and become no closer to T’Pring, who will probably marry the blacksmith. 

Nyota hates to think of it, and instead fans herself as they arrive at the fort where the ceremony will be held, and her father leads her to her spot in the front to watch the proceedings. 

The ceremony is boring and the day is hot; Stonn is handsome and stoic throughout the promotion and Nyota hates her corset with a passion. 

After the ceremony is over, Stonn finds her and guides her up to the top of one of the parapets. She clutches her fan in one hand and his elbow in the other, trying to work up something better than the light breeze her fan provides. She sort of feels like she might faint. 

Looking out to sea almost makes her feel better; the waves sparkle along the horizon and the pair of ships in the harbor below are beautiful. Nyota would rather like being so high up if she didn’t feel like she was about to throw up. 

“You look lovely, Miss Uhura--Nyota,” Commodore Stonn says. Nyota attempts to smile at him. “I apologize if I am forward but I must speak my mind. Against the Vulcan way, I have gone many years without a mate, and this promotion reminds me that I am in a position to have and care for one, to weather the coming storm. As a commodore, I would like to have a fine woman as my bondmate--and you are a fine woman, Nyota.”

Nyota’s mind is fuzzy and his words float in her head, words she can barely understand, and she manages to say, “I can’t breathe.”

“Yes, I believe that is an appropriate human expression of nerves,” Stonn says, his voice fading as everything goes black.

\------

Nyota wakes up gasping, coughing up water. There are three shapes above her--the red coats of the soldiers that crawl the fort--and another man. 

This man is kneeling before her, and he has light hair pulled into a low ponytail and a white shirt with a brown vest and pants. He’s soaking wet and she realizes she is too, and he reaches for her breast--her breath catches--and fingers something. She tilts her head to see that he’s holding T’Pring’s medallion. 

“Where did you get this?” he asks, and she tries to think of an answer, or perhaps to slap his hand away, but then the point of a sword is aimed at the man’s throat. 

“On your feet,” Stonn says, his voice emotionless, and Nyota scrambles to her feet as the man slowly stands up. There are more soldiers swarming around them, and Nyota realizes that she is in her underwear. What happened to her dress?

Her father materializes out of the crowd, draping his coat around her shoulders. 

“Are you alright, Nyota?” her father asks. 

“I’m fine,” Nyota says. “Commodore Stonn, why do you threaten my rescuer?”

Because the handsome man with the golden hair who is soaking wet before her must have rescued her when she fell off the parapet--as Nyota connects the dots, she realizes why Stonn’s sword is pointed at the man. 

Everyone knows that there’s only one type of person who can swim.

Stonn frowns and lowers his sword. 

“I believe thanks are in order,” he says, and the man grins, holding out his hand in a clear ignorance of etiquette when faced with a Vulcan, and Stonn grabs his wrist and pulls up a soaking white sleeve. 

There is a P branded onto his skin; Nyota gasps. 

“It seems you have encountered the East India Trading company, pirate,” Stonn says quietly. Before Nyota can blink, every soldier has a gun aimed at the pirate. Stonn raises the man’s sleeve a bit higher to reveal a tattoo.

As a curious girl inclined to reading and having interest in only a few things, Nyota has consumed much information about pirates, including what tattoos might identify the more notorious ones. The one on this man’s wrist was a spray of stars connected with a thin line; a constellation. Nyota was unpracticed with constellations or anything in the sky, really, but she knew this was the constellation that you sought out when you wanted to find the direction of the planet Vulcan. 

Nyota’s mouth dropped; she knew who this pirate was. 

“James Kirk,” Stonn says, voice flat. “Isn’t it.”

“ _Captain_ James Kirk, please,” Kirk says, lifting his eyebrows flirtatiously. 

“I don’t see your ship, _Captain,”_ Stonn says, looking out at the harbor, where Yorktown’s two ships float without the company of anything grand like a pirate ship. 

“I’m in the market,” Kirk says, unhurried and grinning, looking for all the world like there’s no place he’d rather be.

“He said he came to commandeer one,” a soldier says. 

“These are his, sir,” another soldier says, thrusting a pile of belongings at Stonn. Stonn takes each item one by one, scorning them. 

“No additional shot,” he says to the pirate’s pistol. “A compass that doesn’t point north. And this--I half expected to be made of wood.” Stonn re-sheathes the sword. “You are without a doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of.”

Kirk leans forward, as if he’s about to impart a great secret. 

“Ah,” he says. “But you _have_ heard of me.”

“Arrest him,” Stonn says, gesturing to a soldier bearing handcuffs beside him, and Nyota steps forward. 

“Commodore, I must protest,” she says. “Pirate or not, this man saved my life.”

“One good deed does not redeem a man of a lifetime of wickedness,” Stonn says emotionlessly, turning away. 

“It’s enough to condemn him, though,” Kirk says as his hands are chained together. Nyota can’t help but think he seems awfully personable for someone who is supposed to be so bad. 

“Indeed,” Stonn says, without turning to face him. He gestures for his men to lower their weapons. 

“Finally,” Kirk says, and he reaches out, grabbing Nyota and holding her to his chest, the chains around her neck. Nyota realizes, as the guns are drawn again, that she is a human shield, and a well of anger rises in her chest. 

“Commodore,” Kirk says. “My effects, if you would.”

Stonn stares at them and Kirk tightens his hold on Nyota. She wonders if logic will dictate she be saved or the pirate captured.

With jerky movements, Stonn gestures and the man holding Kirk’s things hand them over. Kirk nudges her and she takes them. 

“If you’d be so kind, Nyota?”

“It’s _Miss Uhura,”_ Nyota growls, enraged, and he smiles and gestures. She drapes his coat over his shoulders and shoves his hat on his head, slams his pistol onto his belt and hopes his sword stabs him through the scabbard somehow as she hooks it to his side. 

“You are despicable,” Nyota hisses. 

“I saved your life, you saved mine. We’re even,” he says, still smiling jauntily, and she _hates_ that smile. It looks like a smile that could convince anyone of his innocence, like a smile that could get him anywhere. 

He backs up, taking her with him. 

“Everyone,” he says. “Write the date down! This is the day you will always remember as the day you _almost_ caught Captain James T. Kirk!” 

And he releases Nyota and grabs a rope in the same movement, soaring above their heads and swinging over the harbor, somehow avoiding every shot from the soldiers that storm after him. Nyota watches him release the rope and run off, every soldier after him, leaving her and her father mostly alone on the docks. 

She’s not sure if she’s impressed or not by him, although as the anger fades she realizes she’s just come face-to-face with a _real_ pirate, and a fuzzy sort of excitement takes hold in her heart. 

“Are you alright?” her father asks. 

“I’m fine,” she says. “I hope he’s captured soon.”

She’s not sure if she’s lying or not, and when her father leads her to a carriage so they can head home, she cranes her neck and looks around, unsure if she’s eager or afraid of seeing James Kirk again.

\-----

“I heard that the Commodore proposed,” Nyota’s maid, Tonia, says. 

“Yes,” Nyota says. She’s in bed, and when Tonia leaves she’ll turn out the lights. Kirk had been captured by the blacksmith some hours before, and Nyota’s unsure why she still feels so uneasy. She fingers the medallion absently.

“I also heard you gave no answer,” Tonia says somewhat knowingly. 

“I didn’t,” Nyota murmurs. “I just--”

Something outside booms, rattles the foundation of the house. Nyota sits up straighter, and it booms again. 

She hears yells. 

“What’s that?” she asks, getting from bed, and Tonia follows her to the window. It is very foggy outside and Nyota cannot see much of anything. There is more commotion from outside, and suddenly Nyota can see fires, in the distance and perhaps coming closer.

“What’s happening?” she asks. 

“I don’t know, miss,” Tonia says anxiously. “I fear it’s something terrible.”

The fires are certainly coming closer. Torches, perhaps?

The yells get louder, and there are more booms. Nyota is struck with a certainty that there is an invasion happening, and that somehow it is James Kirk’s fault. 

\------

An indeterminable amount of time later, when Nyota is running from a pair of pirates in her own home, her conviction that the blame lies on James Kirk’s shoulders is only reinforced. 

The first pirate is tall, with dark hair and broad shoulders, and the second one is small, with curly blonde hair. 

She doesn’t catch any identifying tattoos nor does she stop to ask their names, just pours her bedwarmer’s coals over one of them and runs. 

She reaches for the coat of arms above the fireplace and pulls it down but apparently the swords are attached, somehow, so that’s not very helpful. She can hear the pirates coming, and she looks around frantically, lunging for a closet and pulling the door shut seconds before they come in. 

“We know you’re in here,” the first one calls. Nyota watches them slowly creep around the room through the crack between the door and the wall. “Come out and we promise we won’t hurt you.”

“We won’t?” the other one asks. He has some sort of accent--Russian, Nyota thinks. The dark-haired one shoots him a glare and the Russian one shuts up. 

“Come on, lovely,” the dark-haired pirate croons. “We’ll find you no matter how you hide...the gold calls to us.” The Russian snickers. 

“We can taste it,” he says, and Nyota reaches for the medallion around her neck, touches it with shaky fingers, and the dark-haired pirate turns towards the closet and eases it open with the point of his sword. 

“Hello, lovely,” he says, and Nyota says, “Parlay!” before she’s even processed the thought.

“What?” the Russian says. 

“Parlay,” Nyota says. “I invoke the right of parlay. According to the pirate code set down by Morgan and Bartholemew, someone can invoke parlay and be taken to the captain.”

“I know the Code,” the dark-haired pirate snarls. 

“According to the Code, you can’t do me any harm until the parlay is complete.”

“To hell with the Code,” the Russian says, and the dark-haired pirate stops him from charging forward. 

“No, Chekov,” he says. “She wants to be taken to the captain.” A weird gleam enters his eye. “And she’ll go without a fuss.” He tilts his head. “And we _must_ honor the Code, after all.”

\------

The ship is large and vast, and Nyota stares up at it with wide eyes, trying to take it all in. It’s too foggy to see very well, but she can see people bustling about on the deck and other people on the docks. 

Her captives--Sulu and Chekov, she’s learned in their walk from the governor’s mansion to the harbor--push her along, even though she’d tried to convince them that she would’ve walked of her own accord. 

They push her up the gangplank and onto the ship, and a thin, reedy man with a silver eyepatch eyeballs them.

“What’s this?” he asks. “I didn’t think we were taking captives, Sulu.”

“She wants to parlay with Pike, Mister Mitchell,” Sulu says, and Mitchell laughs before retreating into the gloom--to get the captain, perhaps?

Mitchell comes back and with him is a large, imposing man with dark hair with streaks of silver, dressed in a mustard yellow coat and heeled boots. This must be the captain, and Nyota lifts her head and swallows, taking a step forward. 

“Captain Pike, I am here to--”

Someone slaps her--when her face is turned Nyota banishes the tears welling in her eyes and turns back, shocked. 

“You’ll speak when spoken to!” Mitchell snarls, and Pike grabs the man’s still raised wrist. 

“Now, now, Gary, we mustn’t harm those under the protection of parlay,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” Mitchell says, and when Pike releases him he scurries back into the gloom. Pike smiles at Nyota, and it’s not a reassuring smile--nothing like Kirk’s.

“Now, what were you saying, my dear?”

“I have come to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Yorktown,” Nyota says, lifting her chin, her face stinging, and she wonders if there will be a handprint mark on her face tomorrow.

“Well, now, we’re just humble pirates here,” Pike says, spreading his hands. “And that was an awful lot of big words. What do you want, exactly?”

“I want you to leave and never come back,” Nyota says, trying to stay calm. Pike and other pirates around him, including Chekov and Sulu at her back, laugh. 

“I am disinclined to acquiesce your request,” Pike says, and Nyota crosses her arms and glares at him, mind churning.

“What does that mean?” Chekov whispers. 

“I think it means ‘no’,” Sulu answers, voice equally quiet, but they’re close enough Nyota can hear. 

“Fine,” she says, and she marches to the edge of the ship, taking off the medallion and holding it over the side. “I’ll drop it.”

Pike watches her curiously. 

“And why should that matter to us?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Nyota says. “But those two said they wanted the gold.” She uses her free hand to gesture at Sulu and Chekov, both of whom go pale.

“Those two have no bearing on my ship and just because they want a bit of shine means nothing of my own desires,” Pike says. 

“Fine,” Nyota says, and her hand releases the chain. Every pirate reacts--including Pike--reaching out to stop her, and her hand tightens before the medallion falls. “Gotcha.”

“What’s your name, missy?” Pike asks her, tearing his eyes from the medallion. 

“Uhura,” she says, and then she pauses. “T’Pring Uhura. I’m a maid in the governor’s household.”

“I see,” Pike says, pondering. “And how did a maid come across a trinket such as this?”

“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean,” Nyota says, even though she did, in fact, steal it.

“No, of course not--a gift from a lover, perhaps?” Pike says, seemingly still pondering, and then he snaps out of it. “Very well--if you hand that over, we’ll leave and never return.”

“Do you swear?” Nyota asks, unsure why she would trust the word of a pirate, and thinking that making him swear doesn’t even mean anything anyway. 

“I would not go against the Code!” Pike cries, outraged. “Do you agree?”

“Fine,” Nyota says, and she hands it over just as she realizes--

“Still the guns and stow ‘em! Signal the men, set the flags, and make good to clear port!” Pike cries, and with a dull certainty Nyota realizes she never said anything about going back--and she is sure Pike is clever enough to realize this, and won’t be returning her. “Someone find our Vulcan and bring him to me,” Pike says, and then he turns back to Nyota. 

“I suppose you aren’t taking me home?” she says. 

“Well, that wasn’t part of our agreement, now, was it?” Pike says. “Chekov, Sulu--bring her to my office. And Miss T’Pring--welcome aboard the _Enterprise_.”


	2. T'Pring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've already written chapters 1-5 and so i can guarantee this will be longer than that but i can ALSO say that updates should be pretty fast!!! so far the whole thing is about 10k words :D

T’Pring strides up to the fort and marches up to Stonn’s office, knocking smartly on the door. The door opens and Stonn sees her, steps outside, closing the door to her. 

“Yes?” he says.

“They have taken Nyota,” she says, the name tasting unfamiliar and so good on her tongue. “The pirates.”

“We are aware of the situation,” Stonn says. 

“We must rescue her,” T’Pring says. 

“ _ We _ are already working on that,” Stonn says. “ _ You  _ are a messenger, and should be unconcerned with such things.”

“Nyota is--my friend,” T’Pring says. Stonn arches an eyebrow. She ignores him. For a long moment, they stare at each other. 

“If you have nothing to contribute, you may leave,” Stonn says, and then a guard posted by the Commodore’s office says, “That James Kirk fellow talked about the Enterprise.”

Both Vulcans turn to look at him. 

“Mentioned it, more like,” the man says, withering under their gazes. 

“Then we should ask him if he knows where they are going,” T’Pring says. 

“Illogical,” Stonn says. “The pirates from last night did not take him with them, so they are not allied.”

“I see,” T’Pring says. 

“Go home,” Stonn advises, and then he nods at her and goes back into his office. 

“I dunno, I thought it was a good idea,” the guard says, and T’Pring turns sharply on her heel and marches away, heading down towards the prison. 

Why would the pirates take Nyota? Is the world really so cruel that pirates would take everyone T’Pring is fond of? Not once, but twice?

The notion is illogical, but T’Pring cannot help thinking it. She enters the building and heads down the stairs, toward the lineup of cells along the wall. All are empty, except one.

James Kirk, the pirate whom T’Pring herself had fought and nearly beat the day before, lays on the ground of his cell, his arms over his head and his hands cradling his skull. His ankles are crossed and his eyes are closed, though he must’ve heard her coming. 

For a moment she stares at him, emotion boiling up under her shields. His sleeve has ridden up, exposing both his constellation tattoo and the branded P on his wrist. The sight of the familiar constellation enrages her. How dare he wear that on his wrist.

She calms herself, and then speaks. 

“Are you familiar with the  _ Enterprise _ ?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Kirk says without opening his eyes. 

“Where does it make berth?” she asks. Kirk cracks open his eye and moves, propping himself up so he rests on his elbows and looks at her. 

“You’ve never heard the stories? The  _ Enterprise _ sails from the dreaded Isle of Sha Ka Ree, an island that cannot be found except by those that already know how to find it.”

“You are mixing Vulcan terms with fanciful Earth stories,” T’Pring says coldly. “The ship is real, so it’s anchorage must be real as well. Where is it?”

“Why do you think I know?” Kirk asks, tilting his head. His eyes are open and expressive, and T’Pring wishes he looked meaner.

“You are a pirate,” she says. 

“And you want to be a pirate too, now?” Kirk asks. 

“Never,” T’Pring says. “They took Miss Uhura, and I want to get her back.”

“Oh, so it’s not a  _ man _ you need,” Kirk says, waggling his eyebrows. T’Pring flushes at the reference--during their sword fight at the blacksmith’s the previous day, he had said she needed a new hobby in reference to the fact that she practiced swordfighting many hours a day, and had suggested lewd things. “Well, if you’re intending to rush off to rescue the fair lady and win her heart, I’m afraid you’ll have to do it alone. There’s nothing in it for me.”

He leans back to lay down again. 

T’Pring wants to strangle him, but decides that would not be logical and instead wonders what she could offer him. She looks at the bars between them contemplatively, and then pauses. 

“I could get you out of here,” she says. 

“How?” Kirk asks. “The key’s gone.”

“I am acquainted with the blacksmith who built these cells. These are half-pin barrel hinges. With the correct amount of strength, the door will lift free. Vulcans are three times stronger than humans. I can lift this.” She gestures to the cell door. Kirk gives her a contemplative look. 

“What’s your name?” he asks. 

“T’Pring,” she says, and he blinks before standing. 

“I’ll tell you what, Miss T’Pring, I’ve changed my mind. Lift these doors and I will help you find the  _ Enterprise _ . Do we have a deal?” 

She appreciates that he doesn’t stick out his hand to shake.

“Agreed,” she says, and she grabs hold of the metal before her and lifts. It is heavy, even for her, but it does raise, and Kirk slides under the small gap she makes before she drops the door back down with a loud clang. 

“Great,” he says. 

“Someone will have heard that,” T’Pring says. “We must hurry.”

“Not without my things!” Kirk says, grabbing his sword and coat from the bench across from his cell, and he leads her up the stairs before pausing. “Before we go much further, I suppose I should wonder how far you’re willing to go for the lovely Miss Uhura?”

“I would die for her,” T’Pring says without hesitating, and then she is ashamed of her emotionalism. Kirk grins at her. 

“Well, that’s good, then,” he says, and T’Pring gets the feeling that she has made an awful decision. 

\-----

That feeling only grows half an hour later when she finds herself under an overturned canoe with James Kirk, walking under the harbor water and breathing in the pocket of air the canoe has created. 

“Vulcans are desert creatures, not meant for water,” she says, hating Kirk. 

“You’ll be fine,” Kirk says. “Piracy is an art and art is painful. Keep moving.”

T’Pring steps into a lobster trap.

\------

Yorktown has two ships, the  _ Kelvin _ and the  _ Farragut _ . The  _ Farragut _ is known as the most powerful ship in the Caribbean, and the Kelvin is known as the fastest, besides, perhaps, the  _ Enterprise _ , if rumors are to be believed. 

They head to the  _ Farragut _ , and T’Pring asks Kirk why, and all he says is “you’ll see”. 

When the water gets deep enough, they switch around so they are on their canoe like normal people, and row it out to the  _ Farragut _ . Kirk scales the side of the ship easily, and T’Pring memorizes where he puts his hands so she can follow. There are men on the  _ Farragut _ , but not that many as the majority of the Commodore’s men are preparing to leave to go after the  _ Enterprise _ on the  _ Kelvin _ .

Come to think of it, maybe taking the  _ Farragut _ makes more sense, after all. Kirk leaps over the staircase on the main deck, his sword out, and says, “Everyone stay calm; we’re taking over the ship.”

The men turn and face the pair of them with shocked expressions and T’Pring gets out her own sword. 

“Yes,” she says, and then to sound pirate-y, “Avast.” Kirk shoots her a look as the soldiers laugh and she decides she doesn’t need to talk. 

“This ship cannot be crewed by two men, let alone one man and a woman,” the man in charge says. “You’ll never make it out of the bay.”

“Well,” Kirk says significantly, drawing his gun and pointing it at the man. “I’m Captain James T. Kirk. So you’d better listen.”

\-----

“They are coming,” T’Pring informs Kirk, who runs up beside her to see that the  _ Kelvin  _ is, indeed, moving towards the  _ Farragut.  _ He grins and says, “Be ready.”

The  _ Kelvin  _ pulls up alongside them and the men swing over; while they cross, Kirk hands T’Pring a rope and swings to the  _ Kelvin  _ without looking back at her. She surveys the crossing and decides it’s small and if Kirk can do it, so can she, so she pushes off and swings, jumping off the rope to land solidly on the deck. 

Nobody is still on the ship; T’Pring cuts the ropes between the ships and Kirk sails them away. From the  _ Farragut,  _ she hears Stonn yelling, and turns to see a few sailors attempting to cross back to the  _ Kelvin  _ and landing solidly in the water. 

“Thank you, Commodore, for getting us ready to make way!” Kirk calls, waving his hat. “We would’ve had a hard time of it by ourselves!”

T’Pring can see Stonn’s stoic face; he turns around and walks away, leaving sailors to shoot at the other ship. T’Pring ducks and sees Kirk do the same, and they sail out of range. She imagines the emotionalism Stonn will experience when he sees that she and Kirk have sabotaged the  _ Farragut _ , and she nearly smiles. 

They sail into the open sea and now that they are alone, and cannot turn back, T’Pring approaches Kirk. 

“My name is not so common,” she says. “Why did you only agree to come with me after learning it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kirk says. “You got me out, I’m helping you. No other reason.”

“I am not a fool,” T’Pring says. “I have only encountered pirates once before, but you must be younger than I am. I do not know why you would know me.”

“Maybe it’s not me who’s doing the knowing,” Kirk says. T’Pring looks at the constellation tattoo on his wrist. 

“Eight years ago, my fiance and I set sail for Yorktown together. He did not fit in at home and my parents were dead. We were attacked by a pirate ship and we were separated. He was killed. I do not know what affiliation you had with that attack, but there must be something.”

Kirk stares into the distance, at the ocean. He touches the steering wheel idly. 

“Maybe your fiance isn’t as dead as you think,” he says finally, and T’Pring says, “Impossible. I felt the bond break upon his death.”

“If you say so,” Kirk says, and T’Pring decides he is illogical and quite possibly very stupid, and she storms away from him. 

“We’ll be in Risa by tonight!” Kirk calls, and T’Pring thinks of what she knows of Risa, and she hates him.

\-----

Risa is dirty, and smells terrible, and nearly every man T’Pring sees is drunk or robbing someone or both. Her nose wrinkles involuntarily and Kirk says, “Ah, Risa. A beautiful stench. I’ll tell you, T, if every place was like Risa, nobody would ever feel unwanted.” T’Pring eyeballs a couple boldly making out against a window and decides feeling wanted is overrated. 

“I don’t like it,” she says. 

“Yeah, we need to get out of here as fast as possible,” Kirk agrees, as someone stumbles and vomits right in front of them. 

“With a crew,” T’Pring says. 

“With a crew,” Kirk agrees, and then he leads her to a bar that seems to have the majority of the drunken people spilling out of it. They go inside, and T’Pring reinforces her shields as they walk through the crowd of dancing, drunken revelry. She almost wants to reach out and latch herself to Kirk’s shirt but that would be showing a bit too much vulnerability so she just watches the top of his head and tries to stick close. 

The crowd spits them out and Kirk gestures to a back door. Why did they even go inside if they were just going to go back outside?

In the back, there are a few pigs and quite a bit of mud, and also a man sleeping among the pigs, covered in dirt and clutching a flask to his chest. Kirk searches around and finds a bucket of water and throws it on the man. 

“Curse you for breathing, you slack-jawed idiot!” the man spits, spluttering awake. He wipes mud and grime off his face and turns to see who woke him. His mouth falls open. “Mother’s love, Jim, you know better than to wake a man while he’s sleeping! It’s bad luck!”

Kirk leans against the wall and grins at him. 

“Ah, but fortunately I know how to counter it. The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink. The man who was sleeping drinks it, while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking.” 

The muddy man ponders that, and then grins. “Ah, that’ll about do it!” He gets to his feet and T’Pring picks up her own bucket of water and dumps it on the man. “Damnit, I’m already awake!”

“That was for the smell,” T’Pring says, and the man looks at her angrily. 

“A Vulcan, Jim? Really?”

“Come off it, Bones,” Kirk says, and then leads them both inside. He gets the man a drink and T’Pring introduces herself; the man returns the favor. When Kirk returns, he tells T’Pring to keep an eye out and then sits with McCoy. 

“You get one drink,” he says sternly. 

“That’ll do,” McCoy says, sipping it greedily. “So what’s this proposition?”

“I’m going after the  _ Enterprise,”  _ Kirk says. McCoy chokes on his drink. 

“Against Pike? Are you insane?”

“I know where it’s going to be, and I’m going to take it.”

“Jim, it’s a fool’s errand. You know better than me what they say about the  _ Enterprise.”  _

“Aye, and I know what Pike’s up to. I just need a crew.”

“And dammit, I suppose you want me to be a part of it? I’m supposed to be a doctor, not a pirate!”

“Come on, Bones, you know I need a first mate I can trust.”

“A  _ temporary  _ first mate,” McCoy says. Kirk inclines his head. 

“A temporary first mate. And then once everything’s sorted, you can stay on and patch us up when we get wounded.”

“When  _ you  _ get wounded, you mean,” McCoy grumbles. “I’ve never known someone so accident-prone as you, Jim Kirk. Alright, fine. Say I agree to this venture--why is Pike giving his ship to you?”

“It’s all a matter of leverage,” Kirk says, and then he nods unsubtly at T’Pring. She’s surprised. What kind of leverage does she provide?

“The girl?” McCoy asks. 

“That girl is T’Pring,” Kirk says. 

“ _ The  _ T’Pring?” McCoy asks. Kirk nods. T’Pring doesn’t understand. She pretends not to be listening. 

“Yep,” Kirk says. McCoy strokes his chin thoughtfully. 

“Well, that certainly changes things, doesn’t it?” he says. “I assume you have a plan?”

“When don’t I?” Kirk asks. McCoy glares at him. “What!”

“Alright, Kirk, I’ll get you your crew. There’s bound to be someone on this rock as crazy as you are.”

“We can only hope,” Kirk says, lifting up his drink. “Take what you can!”

“Give nothing back!” McCoy says, matching Kirk’s gesture, and they tap their drinks together before chugging. T’Pring allows herself an eyeroll before she turns her head to look back at the bar, praying that they will be sleeping on the ship tonight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm hoping that this AU is different enough from the curse of the black pearl that people will still be, like, intrigued and compelled by what's going on. how am i doing so far?


	3. Nyota

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't mention before but there's some dialouge in this lifted directly from the film,,,a lot of it i changed if i could but especially like when a captain gives orders n such i just snatched it directly

Nobody ever knocks on a pirate ship, which Nyota supposes makes sense, but she still jumps when the door opens without her consent. A thin man slinks in, closing the door quietly behind him. 

He has long black hair drawn into a braid behind his back, and is dressed in the usual mis-match that she’s noticed most pirates wear, including a dirty blue coat that Nyota thinks looks like it was stolen from a Navy someplace. She’s sitting on the floor, tired from being afraid to sleep, and leaning against the opposite bulkhead as the door. 

He stares at her, and she notices that he’s a Vulcan. 

“What d’you want?” she asks, too tired to be polite. He walks towards her. His steps are quiet. When he’s only a few feet away from her, he sits down across from her. 

“You are not T’Pring, Miss Uhura,” he says quietly. 

“How’d you--yes I am!” Nyota says, straightening up. 

“I am afraid I have run into T’Pring in the past, and as such am familiar with her and can confidently say you are not her,” the Vulcan says. “I understand a need for secrecy on this ship but I must ask you why you chose T’Pring’s name as your pseudonym.” 

“I--” Nyota starts, uncertain. “How do I know you won’t tell Pike?”

“Vulcans do not lie,” the man says. “I will not tell him.” 

Nyota meets his gaze. He looks sincere, and honest, and he’s right that Vulcans do not lie, and something about his eyes seem more open than the other Vulcans Nyota has met. 

“T’Pring is my friend,” Nyota says. “Hers is the first name that came to mind.”

“I see,” the Vulcan says. “And she is safe? In Yorktown?”

“I would assume so,” Nyota says. He nods, and stands back up. 

“Thank you for your assistance, Miss Uhura. I will try to see to it that you are unharmed.” She stands, too, confused, and watches him leave. She follows him towards the door and when he slips out, she presses herself against it, listening. 

“That is T’Pring,” he says. “Undoubtedly.”

“The captain will be right pleased about that,” the familiar voice of Sulu says. “Out of our way, now, the captain said to deliver this to her.”

“As you wish,” the Vulcan says, and Nyota steps away from the door as Sulu and Chekov barge in, carrying a red dress between them. 

“Miss T’Pring,” Sulu says. “The captain told us to tell you he’s invited you to dinner.”

“And you gotta wear this,” Chekov says, shaking his half of the dress. Nyota looks them over coldly. 

“Tell Captain Pike that I’m disinclined to acquiesce to his request,” she says as frostily as she can.

“The Captain said you’d say that!” Sulu says. “He says if that’s the case, you’ll be dining with the crew.”

“And you’ll be naked!” Chekov says cheerfully, and Nyota glares and holds out her hand. They hand over the dress and leave, and she drags a chair over under the doorknob for good measure while she changes.

\-----

The food looks heavenly, and Nyota is not even too mad that she’s alone with Pike as she cuts into a bit of meat and eats it, trying to be ladylike. 

Nyota’s not even sure if it’s that good or if she’s that hungry, but when Pike says that she doesn’t need to impress anybody she digs in with a passion that would embarrass her if she were less hungry or more awake.

“Try the wine,” Pike suggests. “Or an apple.” Nyota ignores the apples in favor of shoving bread down her throat, but the wine is good. She freezes. 

“It’s poisoned,” she says, horrified, looking at Pike’s face. He has a monkey on his shoulder, and it is staring at her with nearly the same hungry expression that Pike is.

“There would be no sense in killing you, Miss T’Pring,” Pike says. 

“Then release me!” Nyota says. “There’s no sense in keeping me here, either!”

Pike leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, looking contemplative. The monkey on his shoulder screeches and hands him the golden medallion. Pike looks down at it, turning the coin through his fingers.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks her. 

“A Vulcan medallion,” she says. “Or a pirate one.”

“This is a key,” Pike says. “Or perhaps the reverse of a key. You see, when this is placed in the chest of Vulcan gold on the Island of Sha Ka Ree, the chest will be closed forever--and the curse along with it.”

“What curse?” Nyota asks. 

“The Vulcans that placed the chest made it only openable by their own green blood--and whoever opens it, and takes the gold, will have a dreaded curse among them. Whether the curse was to condemn human emotionalism or test Vulcan logic, we’ll never know.”

“I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain,” Nyota says, lifting an eyebrow. 

“Ah, neither did we,” Pike says, looking down at the medallion. “A chest, buried on a paradise island that can’t be found except by those who know where it is? But we found the island. We found the chest. We found the gold, and we took it. We sold it, we traded it. But the more we gave it away, the more we came to realize--drink would not satisfy, food turned to ash in our 

mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed men, Miss T’Pring. Compelled by greed we were, but now we are consumed by it. It’s not  _ logical,  _ but here we are.” 

He spreads his hands, drops the medallion, and leans over to pick it up. Nyota takes a knife from the table and puts it on her lap, hiding it among the generous skirts of the borrowed dress. Pike straightens up.

“The only way to end the curse is to seal the chest with blood--and put every last piece of the cursed gold inside. And if we put in this--” he shakes the medallion-- “the chest will be sealed forever. Thanks to you, nobody will ever experience our curse again.”

“And the blood?” Nyota asks, afraid of the answer. 

“Well, that’s why there’s no sense to killing you--yet,” Pike leers, standing, and Nyota wraps her hand around the handle of her knife. “Apple?” 

She stands, too, to smack the apple he’s holding out of his hand, and then to lunge at him. He grabs for her wrist but there’s enough power in her movement that the knife sinks into his chest. Nyota gasps, shocked, and Pike pulls the knife out of his chest. There’s no blood. 

“I’m curious,” he says. “After you kill me, what will you do?” 

Nyota realizes her back is to the door, and she turns and opens it, running out onto the deck and bumping into a crewmember. 

Except the crewmember is a living skeleton, flesh hanging off of his bones, his clothes torn and ragged. Nyota screams and turns, trying to run but coming face-to-face with more skeletons. 

She bumps into yet another skeleton and recognizes the long black hair, the blue Navy coat. 

“Miss Uhura,” the skeleton that used to be her Vulcan friend says, and she screams again, turning back around, not sure where to run, until she sees Pike standing in the shadows of his cabin. He points up at the moon, shining down on them.

“The moonlight shows us for what we truly are, Miss T’Pring,” Pike says. “We are not among the living, and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead. For too long I have been parched of

thirst, and unable to quench it! Too long, I have been starving to death – and haven't died!

I feel nothing… Not the wind on my face, nor the spray of the sea… nor the warmth of a woman's flesh.” He reaches out his hand towards her, and she backs away. His hand falls into the moonlight, and becomes skeletal. Nyota stifles yet another scream, and he steps fully into the moonlight, his flesh turning rotten and clothes turning ragged, his face giving way to a skull. “You’d best start believing in ghost stories, Miss T’Pring--you’re in one!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	4. T'Pring

The day dawns bright, and McCoy leads Kirk and T’Pring out to the docks, where a line of people stand. 

“Feast your eyes, Captain!” McCoy says. “All of them are faithful, brave, true, decent at sailing, and insane, just like you!”

“Perfect!” Kirk says, rubbing his hands together, and T’Pring reminds herself that she’s doing this for Nyota.

Kirk walks down the line of people, nodding thoughtfully, and T’Pring gives them a once-over. 

“ _This_ is your able-bodied crew?” she asks, unimpressed. In the line up, she sees a skinny kid who can’t be more than seventeen, a man who reeks of alcohol who is wearing some sort of skirt, a trio of blonde women, two of whom are in dresses, and a small alien that she doesn’t recognize the species of, among others. 

Kirk stops by the alien. 

“You! Sailor!” he says. 

“Keenser,” McCoy says. 

“Mister Keenser,” Kirk says. “Do you have the courage and fortitude to follow orders and stay true in the face of danger and possibly certain death?”

Keenser says nothing. 

“Answer me!” Kirk says. 

“Oh, he don’t talk none, sir,” the man in the skirt says. “But I speak for both of us when I say we are certainly prepared for that. Sir.”

“Great!” Kirk says, and he looks at T’Pring as if proving something. She’s not sure he’s proving much at all. 

“You have proved they are mad,” T’Pring says, raising an eyebrow. 

“What’s the benefit for us?” one of the women calls, and Kirk looks at her and does a double take. 

“Janice!” he says. It’s the blonde woman who has her hair teased into a large updo and is in a pink dress. The woman beside Janice’s hair is down, and she’s dressed in blue, and the one in pants has her hair cut short, like a man. T’Pring wonders if she could get some pants, too. Maybe the man in the skirt had some and would be willing to trade. 

Janice smacks the captain across the face. 

“I suppose that was unwarranted?” McCoy asks teasingly. 

“No, I deserved that,” Kirk says. 

“You stole my boat!” Janice cries. 

“Actually--”

The woman in the blue dress smacks him this time. T’Pring likes these women. 

“Borrowed!” Kirk cries. “Borrowed without permission. I had every intention of bringing it back.”

“Well, where is it?” the third woman asks, and Kirk blanches. 

“Look, ladies--”

“I’ll get you another one,” Kirk says. 

“A better one,” T’Pring cuts in.

“A better one!” Kirk agrees.

“That one,” T’Pring says, pointing at the _Kelvin._

“That one?” Kirk says, and then he pauses. “Yeah, that one. Okay, what do you say?”

The blonde women look at each other, then the ship. 

“Aye!” they cry. 

“Aye!” the others cry.

\-----

The names of the people T’Pring noted are Christine and Carol and Riley and Scott, and including Keenser, Janice, and McCoy and the few others it’s not much of a crew, but T’Pring gets the impression that Kirk is pleased, anyway. 

“There’ll be more,” McCoy tells her, after they’ve weathered a storm that Kirk smiled through. T’Pring attempts to wring out her skirts. “If this thing succeeds, people’ll be begging to be on his ship.”

“I see,” T’Pring says. She looks up at Kirk. He’s eyeballing his broken compass in a way that makes her think it’s not that broken, after all, and they are sailing through rocks. Last she heard, they were close to Sha Ka Ree Island. “How is it he came by that compass?”

“Not a lot is known about Jim Kirk from before he showed up in Risa with the crew of the _Enterprise,_ ready to make heading for the cursed Vulcan gold of Sha Ka Ree. That was before I met him, when his father was captain of the _Enterprise,_ around eight years ago. _”_

“His father was the captain of the _Enterprise_?” T’Pring asks, and McCoy’s eyes widen before he continues. 

“Well, not everyone knows. You see, three days out on the venture the first mate comes to ol’ George Kirk and says everything’s an equal share--that should mean the location of the treasure, too. So George gives up the bearings. And then that night, there was mutiny. George was sent straight into the depths, and little Jimmy was marooned on a deserted island, left to die.”

“Oh,” T’Pring says. 

“Now, when a pirate is marooned, he's given a pistol with a single shot. One shot, well, that won't do much for hunting, or to be rescued. But after three weeks alone, starving and thirsty, that pistol starts to look real friendly.” McCoy mimics shooting himself in the head before continuing. “But Jim--he escaped the island. And he still has that single shot. Oh, but he won't use it, though, save on one man. The man who murdered his father--”

“Pike,” T’Pring says. McCoy nods. “How did Kirk get off that island?”

“He waded out into the shallows and he waited there, three days and three nights, 'till all the sea creatures became acclimated to his presence. Then on the fourth morning he roped himself a couple of sea turtles, lashed 'em together and made a raft. And just...rode ‘em away.” McCoy mimics a raft sailing out to see with his hands and T’Pring raises an eyebrow. 

“Sea turtles?” she asks. 

“Aye,” McCoy says, and she cannot tell if he truly believes the story or if he’s merely playing a human trick on her. “Sea turtles.”

“Where did he get rope?” she asks, saying the first question of many. 

“Human hair,” Kirk says, appearing between them. “Torn straight from my head.”

“And you were--fourteen?”

“Something like that,” Kirk says, and he holds her gaze. She doesn’t believe him. 

He turns around, and commands the crew to lower the anchor, says he and T’Pring will be going to the Island. McCoy approaches him. 

“What if you don’t come back?” he asks. 

“Stick to our Code,” Kirk says. 

“Right,” McCoy says. T’Pring remembers Nyota talking about the pirate code but is unsure if they mean that or something else, and if it _is_ that, what exactly they mean.

She and Kirk get on a boat, and as he rows her towards the large, looming cave before her, she wonders what, exactly, this all has to do with her. 

There’s something she’s missing--why do all these pirates know about her? Why is she going to be the leverage? Why did Kirk even agree to do this? The pieces aren’t connecting, and only once they make land does T’Pring remember to be worried about Nyota, and said worry crashes over her like a wave.

She crawls after Kirk into the rocks that make up the cave, sticking to the back and listening to the echoing voices that surround them. She hadn’t seen the _Enterprise,_ when sailing in, but the crew must be here, regardless. Kirk flips open his compass again and points the way, and they find a hole that opens up into a large cavern filled with what T’Pring imagines is something like eight years worth of pirate treasure. The crew of the _Enterprise_ stand around a raised part with a red stone chest that T’Pring recognizes as being of Vulcan origin. Up by the chest stands a man with a monkey on his shoulder, and a pair of men who are restraining Nyota, who is fully alive, fully unharmed, and fully beautiful. T’Pring can’t help her sigh of relief. 

“Come on,” Kirk whispers, and they slide down from their hole and towards the crowd. 

“What was the Code you told McCoy to stick to?” T’Pring asks.

“Pirate code. Whoever falls behind is left behind.”

“No honor among thieves,” T’Pring says. 

“You know,” Kirk says, looking at her sideways. “For someone who doesn’t like pirates, you’re well on your way to becoming one.”

T’Pring does not dignify that with a response, and Kirk grins. The man with the monkey--it must be Pike--starts speaking. 

“For almost ten years, we've been tested and tried and each of you here has proved his mettle a hundred times over, and a hundred times again!” 

The crowd cheers, and Nyota hears a Russian-accented voice cry, “Suffered, I have!”

“Punished we all were, in a way that was disproportionate to our crime!” Pike cries, and then he opens the red-sand chest. “Here it is, the cursed Vulcan treasure. Every last piece that went astray--and even this!” 

He holds up a medallion that twinkles in the sunlight from the holes in the ceiling. 

“They key to our freedom!”

Pike turns and wraps the medallion around Nyota’s neck as she glares at him, venom in her gaze. 

“Come on,” Kirk whispers. Pike is still speaking and the pirates are yelling--something about blood--and T’Pring wants to pay attention but she is suddenly positive that Kirk is going to do something terrible. 

She reaches out her hand and pinches his shoulder; catching him when he falls back and setting him on the ground. 

“I am not going to be your leverage,” she says, and she heads down towards the pirates, watching as Pike takes a knife and slices Nyota’s hand. There is water all around the land the pirates are standing on, and T’Pring slips into it, swimming towards Nyota and wondering how many nerve pinches she can get away with. 

She surfaces, watching Pike shoot one of his own crew--the man looks down at himself.

“You’re not dead,” another crewmember says. 

“No,” the man notes, then he looks up at Pike, outraged. “You shot me!”

“It didn’t work,” the Russian notes.

“The curse is still upon us!” another crewmember cries. Pike’s face shutters and then he turns to Nyota, grabbing her by the hair. 

“You!” he snarls. “Is your name really T’Pring? Your husband, what was his name?”

“I’ve never been married,” Nyota spits. “And my name is Nyota.”

Pike slaps her so hard that she falls, rolling down the hill and towards the water’s edge. T’Pring swims to her as the crew rounds on the Russian and the man who got shot. 

“You brought us the wrong girl!” someone shouts. 

“He’s the one what said it was her!” the Russian cries, pointing a Vulcan crewmember. 

T’Pring puts her hand over Nyota’s mouth, approaching from behind; she stiffens and then turns, lighting up when she sees T’Pring. T’Pring gets a flash of joy from her contact with Nyota and is pleased. She gestures for Nyota to join her in the water, and Nyota rolls in quietly. T’Pring leads her to the back of the cave, near where she left Kirk’s body. 

They crawl out of the water and T’Pring notes that the pirates are now rioting, and they run as quietly as they can to the cave’s exit, escaping into the blinding sunlight. 

“There’s our ship,” T’Pring says, pointing.

“Is that the _Kelvin?”_ Nyota asks, laughing, and T’Pring nods, gesturing to the dingy that will take them back to the _Kelvin,_ and back to freedom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! have some backstory for jim and some rescuing for nyota!!!
> 
> shoutout to my sibling for putting up with me blabbering about this fic and then reading the bits of the WIP i sent them and then also being generally supportive. kevin riley, who gets approximately zero (0) more mentions and also zero (0) more lines, was included for them <3


	5. Jim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is shorter but since the next one will be posted tomorrow i don't think it's such a big deal ;)

Jim wakes up with his head throbbing, and his shoulder sore. 

Ugh, he thinks. _Vulcans._

There are loud noises all around him and his head is rather fuzzy, so he stands up, wandering towards the noise. Nobody ever said Jim Kirk had a self-preservation instinct. 

“You!” a voice calls, and Jim recognizes Sulu, who’s pointing at him with a shaky finger. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“You’d be surprised how often I’ve heard that,” Jim says, and then Sulu rolls his eyes. 

“Oh, you’re just Jim,” he says, and as Jim has been mistaken for his father a vast many times before, he doesn’t react beyond raising an eyebrow. Sulu remembers himself and points his pistol at him, and Jim realizes he’s surrounded by pirates who are doing the same. 

“Right,” he says. “Parlay?”

\-----

“How,” Pike says, eying Jim murderously, “did you get off that island?”

“I’m Jim Kirk, and I eat impossible for breakfast. Next question,” Jim says, smiling wide and friendly, even though there are guns pointed at him from all around. He hopes that T’Pring found Miss Uhura and escaped with Bones, and that Bones will escort them right back to Yorktown and Jim’ll never have to see either woman again. It messes up his plans a bit, but Jim’s good at improvising. 

“Right,” Pike says doubtfully. “Gents--kill him.”

“Wait!” Jim cries as the pirates around him raise their guns. He spots a pointed ear somewhere behind Pike. “The girl’s blood didn’t work, did it?”

“Hold your fire,” Pike snaps to his crew. He looks at Jim appraisingly. “You know whose blood we need.”

Jim grins. 

“I know whose blood you need,” he says.

\------

“So what I’m hearing is that you expect to leave me standing on some beach with nothing but a name and your word that it’s the one I need, and watch you sail away on my ship?” Pike asks. He’s sitting on a chair in the captain’s quarters, and Jim walks around it. Pike decorates differently than his dad did. Jim already knows what he’s going to do with the place when it’s his. He turns on his heel to face the older pirate. 

“No,” he says. “I expect to leave you standing on some beach with no name at all, watching me sail away on _my_ ship, and then I’ll shout the name back to you.”

“But that still leaves us with the problem of me standing on some beach with nothing but a name and your word it’s the one I need,” Pike says. Jim picks up an apple from the bowl on the table and turns the other chair around to sit in it backwards. He leans against the back and takes a bite of the apple.

“Of the two of us I am the only one who hasn't committed mutiny nor patricide, so my word is the one we'll be trusting,” Jim explains.

“It’s not patricide if it’s not _my_ father I killed,” Pike says. 

“Semantics,” Jim says. “Anyway, I guess I should thank you for murdering my father and marooning me on a deserted island--if you hadn’t, I’d also be cursed. So there is that, I guess.”

“You’re welcome,” Pike says, and then Mitchell pokes his head into the room. 

“Captain,” he says. “We’re coming up on the _Kelvin._ ”

Pike stands and stalks towards the door and Jim scrambles to his feet to follow him. Outside on the deck, Jim recognizes almost all the pirates in the crew--some from his childhood spent aboard the _Enterprise,_ some from Risa, some because he owes them money--or because they owe him a favor. Jim spots three familiar people talking in the corner and grins, running up to Pike’s side. 

“I’m having a thought, here, Pike,” Jim says. “What do you say to waving a white flag and I’ll just pop on over to the _Kelvin_ and negotiate the return of your key and then come right back here, so we can get back to the marooning and name-giving?”

“I say that that’s the exact attitude why we kicked you off my ship in the first place,” Pike says, lowering his telescope to look at Jim. “You’re too kind-hearted. People are a lot easier to search when they’re dead. Lock him in the brig!” This last part is shouted, and someone grabs his shoulders, dragging him backwards. 

Jim turns, sees who it is, grins. 

“Hello, beautiful,” he purrs. 

“Captain Pike is going to kill everyone on that ship, and it will be your fault,” Spock informs him as he drags him below. 

“Not to worry, I have a plan,” Jim says, winking, and Spock shoves him into the brig. 

“How does this plan end?” Spock asks, locking the door.

“With me on my ship, a lovely crew around me, first mate at my side, and no curses in my way,” Jim says. Spock meets his eyes. 

“I see,” he says neutrally, and Jim reaches through the bars to touch his jacket. Spock shakes off his fingers. 

“I expect I will see you shortly,” he says, and then he turns away and marches smartly out the door, and Jim watches him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	6. Nyota

T’Pring explains, her voice emotionless and soothing, how she had broken James Kirk from prison and set off to rescue Nyota. Her heart swells and she can’t help but grin at her happily, but then the bleeding from the cut in her hand distracts her and she goes to bandage it. However, her dominant hand is the one that got cut and tying a bandage one-handed is difficult. 

“Let me help,” T’Pring says, and she reaches for Nyota’s hands. Her breath catches in her throat as T’Pring cradles her injured hand in one of hers, and uses the other to wrap the bandage around it. Nyota feels sparks of her friend’s mind pressing against hers, and she doesn’t move for fear of disrupting the moment.

“Why did you give Pike my name as yours?” T’Pring asks quietly. 

“I--I don’t know,” Nyota says. She does know.

Something in T’Pring’s movement hurts her hand and she winces. 

“I apologize,” T’Pring says, halting. “I am unused to touching others’ hands, I know I am clumsy.”

“No,” Nyota says. “No, don’t stop.”

T’Pring looks up from her hands and meets her gaze; Nyota feels something warm bubble in her gut. 

“Nyota,” T’Pring says, and with much difficulty Nyota tears her gaze to the medallion and uses her free hand to pass it over to her. 

“It’s yours,” she says. T’Pring looks at it for a long moment, then stops touching Nyota to grab it with both hands. 

“I thought I lost this the day they rescued me,” T’Pring says. “This was a gift from he-who-was-my-husband, given to him by his father--why did you take it from me?”

“I don’t know,” Nyota confesses, feeling her heart might break. “I thought it was a Vulcan pirate medallion and I didn’t want you to be a pirate. That would’ve been awful.”

T’Pring’s hand closes around the medallion. 

“It was not your blood they needed,” T’Pring says. “It was the blood of a Vulcan--my blood.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nyota says, and she feels tears running down her cheeks. “Please forgive me.”

T’Pring does not respond, and Nyota buries her face in her hands.

\-----

Nyota comes up onto the main deck to see the pirates scurrying around in a panic, McCoy barking orders. She takes the stairs up to the wheel and finds Rand.

“What’s happening?” she asks. 

“The _Enterprise,_ she’s gaining on us,” Rand says, jerking her thumb behind her. Nyota turns to see that the dreaded ship is, indeed, within sights. 

“But this is the fastest ship in the Caribbean!” Nyota protests, looking back at Rand, who shrugs at her. 

“Tell them that after they’ve caught us,” she says, as McCoy takes the steps up two at a time to stand near them. 

Nyota bites her lip in thought. “We’re shallower on the draft, right?”

“Aye,” Rand says slowly. 

“Can’t we lose them among those shoals?” Nyota asks, pointing at rocks along the horizon. 

“We don’t have to outrun them long, just long enough,” McCoy says, dawning realization on his face. 

“Lighten the ship!” Rand yells. 

“Anything we can afford to lose, it’s lost!” McCoy barks, running back among the crew. Nyota doesn’t allow herself to process the feeling of victory, instead running after him to help. 

\-----

Nyota is dumping a crate over the side as Scotty and Keenser go to push a canon over when T’Pring materializes, stopping them. 

“We are going to need that,” she says, pointing at the _Enterprise_ gaining on them quickly. Nyota feels her mouth fall open and thinks that she is surely going to die. Pike will kill her.

“It was a good plan,” Scotty says. “Up until now.”

T’Pring breaks from the side and marches up to Rand and McCoy. 

“We must fight,” she says. “We have to make a stand.”

“How?” Rand says. “The cannonballs were the first thing over.”

“Anything we have left,” T’Pring says. “It is not logical but the men on the _Enterprise_ killed my fiance and kidnapped Nyota. I would not go down without a fight.” McCoy puts his hand on her shoulder, and then turns to the crew. 

“Load the guns! Anything and everything we have left! Let’s _go!”_ he hollars, and the crew scramble to obey, Nyota included. 

When she finds herself back on the deck again, she goes up to McCoy and T’Pring and Rand, who are watching the _Enterprise_ approach. 

“She’s going to hit us,” McCoy says in dismay. “We won’t even get to fire at them.”

Nyota watches and looks around, thinking. 

“What if we lowered the anchor on the starboard side?” she says. The other three look at her like she’s crazy, and she turns pleading eyes to T’Pring. 

“I do not know,” T’Pring says. “It would be surprising, certainly.” 

“You’re both insane,” Rand says. 

“Insane like Jim,” McCoy says, and then he turns, yelling for the crew to lower the starboard anchor. Nyota grins in victory, running down to help. 

\----

The time that passes between the beginning of the battle and the end is a blur of fear and cannonfire and adrenaline, people yelling and the boom of the cannons and the ship being destroyed. 

Sometime in the middle, Nyota realizes that she doesn’t know where the medallion is, and she’s barely realized it before T’Pring has vanished to retrieve it, and the ship is falling apart, and suddenly James Kirk is on board, his sword out, and Nyota is looking for T’Pring and running, trying to stay alive, and Kirk grabs her by the shoulders. 

“Where’s the medallion?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I think T’Pring is looking for it--”

An explosion booms, and they both duck before T’Pring appears. 

“The monkey stole the medallion,” she says tonelessly, and then Nyota sees it scamper across the deck; both she and Kirk lunge for it but someone grabs Nyota by the shoulders and she struggles in their tight grip. She sees the monkey crawl up Pike’s shoulders--

“Thank you, Jim,” Pike says. 

“You’re welcome,” Kirk says, confused. 

“Not you,” Pike says. “We named the monkey Jim.”

Kirk makes a disgusted face, and the pirate holding Nyota takes her across to the _Enterprise._

The other crewmembers of the _Kelvin_ are lashed to the mast, and Nyota does a headcount before realizing T’Pring isn’t there. She screams, and the _Kelvin_ explodes. 

“NO!” she yells, surging forward, and then Pike pushes her back. 

“Last time you were aboard we were quite hospitable, Miss Uhura, and this time you won’t find the same to be true,” he says, and then a voice yells, “PIKE!”

They turn to see T’Pring standing on the rail, soaking wet, her dress cut to her knees. 

“She goes free!” T’Pring says, pointing at Nyota. 

“Who are you?” Pike asks, and T’Pring jumps down, snatches Kirk’s pistol, and aims at Pike’s face. 

“She goes free,” she says again, and Nyota might think it was hot if she didn’t fear for T’Pring’s life. 

“That pistol only has one shot and we can’t die,” Pike says, bemused.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Kirk breathes, and T’Pring’s eyes dart around before she leaps back onto the rail, putting the pistol under her chin. 

“You cannot--but I can,” T’Pring declares, and Nyota winces. 

“Like that,” Kirk mutters. 

“Okay, have fun,” Pike says dismissively, turning away.

“I am T’Pring!” she declares. Pike freezes and slowly turns back around. “I am a Vulcan and my blood is green. You need me.” 

“The same T’Pring who Spock is married to?” Chekov asks. 

“We were bonded in the way of my people when we were children,” T’Pring says, lifting an eyebrow. “Though I am not sure how that is relevant.” 

“That’s her?” Pike asks a man standing in the front who Nyota recognizes as her Vulcan friend. 

“Yes,” he says, seeming shocked. 

“Well, then,” Pike says, a wide grin spreading over his face. “That changes things, doesn’t it?” 

“Do as I say or I promise I will pull the trigger and send myself straight into the--what do humans say? Mister Jones’s locker?”

“Davy Jones,” Sulu says helpfully. 

“Right,” T’Pring says, and she cocks the pistol. “Davy Jones’s locker.”

Pike crosses his arms and looks at T’Pring speculatively. “All right. Name your terms.”

“Nyota goes free,” T’Pring declares.

“Obviously,” Pike says, rolling his eyes. “Anything else?”

Kirk gestures to himself and his crew and T’Pring looks at him before looking back at Pike. Even before she opens her mouth, Nyota knows that T’Pring did not understand what Kirk was asking. 

“Kirk _,”_ she says. “He is not to be harmed.”

Pike grins. 

“Deal,” he says, and Nyota is positive that whatever T’Pring has just negotiated has just gone horribly wrong. 

\-----

Nyota hates being right, she thinks, as she plunges into the salty depths, the cold water shocking her system. She rises to the surface and then sort of flails, knowing that it is too deep for her to walk to the island and also knowing she can’t swim. 

Kirk surfaces next to her and says, “Arm over arm, Uhura, you can do it,” and then starts a neat stroke towards the island. She casts a last look at the _Enterprise,_ which is already leaving them behind, and then goes under again and decides to follow Kirk’s advice. 

She manages alright, she supposes, and is actually glad that Pike had taken his dress back--she doesn’t think the heavy fabric would’ve done her any favors in this water. When she can walk again, she’s immensely glad, and she trudges right out of the water and shakes like a dog. 

Kirk has draped his coat and other belongings on the sand, presumably to dry. 

“Now what?” she asks. 

“Sea turtles,” Kirk says, which seems like a bit of a non-sequitur, but Nyota follows him towards the treeline anyway. “You see, this is the very same island I was marooned on right after Pike killed my father. You’ve read about me--I’m sure you’ve heard of this incident.”

“Sort of,” Nyota says, as Kirk knocks on a palm tree. 

“Well,” he says, taking a few measured steps in a way that seems practiced. “In those days, the rumrunners used this island as a cache, and they came by when I was here. They took pity on me, the poor stranded boy who’d just lost a father, and took me with them.” He jumps up and down a few times on the sand, then shifts over a few feet and does it again. “‘Course, that ship became the first one that named me captain, but that’s a different story.”

“As a teenager?” Nyota asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Kirk says, looking her dead in the eye, and then he bends over and digs his hand in the sand, revealing some sort of metal ring that he lifts, revealing a trapdoor. “Anyway, those rumrunners have long abandoned this place--might be my fault, might be your friend Stonn’s.” Kirk flips the trapdoor all the way open and goes inside the pit it reveals, coming back holding a pair of dusty bottles of rum. 

“So that’s it?” Nyota asks. “You want to lay on the beach and drink rum?”

“No,” Kirk says, handing her a bottle and uncorking the other. “I want to use the rum in this pit to light those trees on fire, and _then_ I want to lay on the beach and drink the rest of it.” He takes a swig, and Nyota eyes him. 

“You know that all of Yorktown is out looking for me? It’ll be Stonn’s men who answer that call,” she says. 

“Between you and me, I’d rather be in Stonn’s hands than starving to death on a beach,” Kirk says.

“Between you and me, the only difference between the two is that Stonn will speed the process up a bit,” Nyota says. 

“Fine by me!” Kirk says, going back into the pit, whistling cheerfully.

\------

The fire burns cheerfully in the trees above them, and Nyota and Kirk sit on the beach, passing a bottle of rum between them. 

“When the _Farragut_ arrives,” Kirk says, after a long sip of rum, “will you be able to convince them to go after Pike, or will I have to throw a mutiny and do it myself?”

“I would’ve thought that you would want to get as far away from Pike as possible,” Nyota says, surprised. 

“I need to retrieve my crew,” Kirk says, taking another sip. “Bones wouldn’t know what to do with himself without me.”

“I thought the Code said that whoever falls behind is left behind,” Nyota says, accepting the bottle when he hands it to her. 

“Maybe the Pirate Code says that, but not the James T. Kirk Code,” Kirk says. “I stick by my crew.”

“Noble of you,” Nyota says, taking a sip. She can’t decide if she likes it or not. “I’ll be able to convince them.”

“Good,” Kirk says. “When we get there, I’ll go in by myself. You get yourself to the _Enterprise_ and free my crew--Pike’ll have them in the brig. Bones knows what to do.”

“What about T’Pring?” Nyota asks, shocked that Kirk would entrust such a task to herself. 

“She’ll be with Pike, and I’ll send her your way. You rescue my crew, I rescue her.”

Nyota understands. Once she’s freed Kirk’s crew, she can go back to the _Farragut,_ and she’ll be able to go home beside T’Pring. Kirk will deal with the rest, and she’ll never see him again. She’ll wash her hands of this adventure and be a proper lady again, get married to a good man and perhaps one day T’Pring will let her hold her hand again. Nyota takes another swig of rum and lays down on the sand. 

“How do you know I won’t stay on the _Farragut_ and mess everything up for you?” she asks. 

“I don’t,” Kirk says. “Ah, look. Company.”

He points, and sure enough on the horizon Nyota can see a dark dot. Soon enough, it’ll be a ship, and they’ll be saved. 

She should feel relieved. 

So why does she only feel dread?

\------

“But we must save T’Pring!” Nyota tells her father, pleading. 

“No!” he says. They are on the _Farragut,_ and although she is pleased to see her father, she wishes he would _listen_ to her. “We just got you back, we will not be endangering you again.”

“Then we condemn her to death!” Nyota says, her voice going shrill and her not particularly caring. “They will kill her!”

“And that is regrettable, but she _did_ engage in piracy,” her father says. 

“Only to rescue me!” Nyota says. “It was--logical!”

Kirk snaps his fingers and points at her. 

“If I may interject my professional opinion,” he says. “The _Enterprise_ was listing pretty badly after that battle, so it’s unlikely she makes very good time. We could catch up with her pretty easily, I think.”

“If a pirate thinks doing something is a good idea, I am inclined to do the opposite,” Stonn says, voice flat, and Nyota knows she must play her hand before Kirk decides she won’t follow through and commits a mutiny. Oh, well, Nyota thinks. She’d probably have done this anyway, even without Kirk asking for her help.

“Please, Commodore,” she says, and then she dares to reach out and touch Stonn’s shoulder. “For me? For a wedding present.” Kirk’s mouth falls open and even through the fabric of Stonn’s jacket she feels faint sparks of joy, which is kind of an ego booster. 

“Nyota, are you accepting the commodore’s proposal?” her father asks eagerly. 

“I am,” she says, meeting Stonn’s eyes and holding out two fingers. He meets them with his own.

“Oh, wow!” Kirk says. “A wedding! I love weddings!” Stonn shoots him a quelling look. “Right, yeah. Sorry.”

“Mister Kirk,” Stonn says, after a long moment. “You shall go to the helm and provide a bearing for the Sha Ka Ree Island, and you will spend the rest of the voyage being absolutely silent. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Kirk says, and he saunteers away. 

\-----

There’s a knock on the cabin doors, and Nyota goes to open them. Kirk is standing there. 

“We’ve made it,” he says. “I assume the commodore will be locking you in here shortly for your own protection.”

“Did you tell him about the curse?” Nyota asks, wondering when she and a pirate become conspirators. 

“Nope,” he says, winking. “I think I’ll leave that as a fun little surprise, shall I?”

“He’s my fiance,” she says. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“I will do my best,” Kirk says. “Take this.” He holds his compass in front of him, and she reaches for it. 

“Why?”

“The _Enterprise_ will be hidden,” he says. “It’ll help you find it.”

“Kirk!” Stonn’s voice roars from somewhere above them. 

“Is that what this points to?” Nyota asks. “The _Enterprise?”_ Kirk winks. 

“Depends on who’s holding it,” he says, and then he runs off, and Nyota flips open the compass, turning around. She looks up and her eyes fall on a spare sailor’s outfight. 

Right, then. 

She has work to do.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nyota really touched hands with every single vulcan that was in this chapter which i think is iconic of her


	7. T'Pring

T’Pring is shoved back into the cave, the pirates Mitchell and Finnegan at her back, and the rest of the pirates surging into the cave around them. Mitchell and Finnegan drag her up the dias to the chest and push her to her knees. The medallion from around her neck dangles over the gold inside, already stained with Nyota’s red blood. 

Due to the fact that she is on her knees, T’Pring assumes they want to behead her. She wonders why they only cut Nyota’s hand for this ceremony and yet will be decapitating her. Perhaps the poor Vulcan they used to open the chest was also beheaded. 

“Begun by blood,” Pike cries from somewhere over her. “By blood undone!” 

“Wait!” a voice calls, and T’Pring jerks her head from the chest to see Kirk emerging from the crowd. 

“James!” T’Pring says.

“It’s not possible,” Pike says. 

“Not  _ probable _ ,” Kirk corrects. 

“Where’s Nyota?” T’Pring asks, noting that Kirk is fully alone. 

“She’s safe, just like I promised. She’s all set to marry Stonn, just like she promised, and you’re set to die for her, just like  _ you  _ promised. So we’re all women of our word, really, except for me, who is, in fact, a man,” Kirk says. 

“Shut up!” Pike says, and then T’Pring feels cold metal along her neck. She freezes.

“You don’t wanna be doing that,” Kirk says. 

“And why not?” Pike says. 

“Well for starters, the  _ H.M.S. Farragut _ , pride of the Caribbean, is waiting just outside for you lot,” Kirk says. “But those fine gentlemen aboard the ship are quite unaware of your...skeletal status. Hear me out: you order your men to row out there, and do what they do best, and then you have  _ two  _ ships. I’ll take the  _ Enterprise,  _ you get the flagship, and I’ll give you ten percent of my plunder. Everyone wins.”

“And I suppose you want me to keep her alive, in exchange?” Pike asks, pointing at T’Pring. 

“I mean, do what you want,” Kirk says. “But  _ I  _ would wait for the right moment to do it. It’ll be easier to take the  _ Farragut  _ if you’re undead, all I’m saying.”

T’Pring cannot believe her ears. 

“You have been planning this since the beginning,” she accuses. “Ever since you discovered who I was.”

“Ever since I discovered  _ that _ ,” Kirk corrects, pointing to the medallion around her neck. “But yeah, basically.”

“I want fifty percent of your plunder,” Pike says. 

“Uh,  _ no,  _ fifteen,” Kirk says.

“Forty.”

“Twenty-five, and I’ll throw in a huge new hat with feathers and whatever else you want. And a matching one, for the monkey.” 

“Deal!” Pike says, and they shake. Pike twists and yells to his crew, “Gents--take a walk!”

Most of them turn to leave, besides Mitchell and Finnegan behind her, still holding her down. 

The cave empties and is silent for a long moment. 

“I must admit, Jim, I thought I had you figured out,” Pike says. “But you are a hard man to predict.” 

Kirk shakes his head. “Maybe if you hadn’t marooned me you’d know me better,” he says, walking around the cave and inspecting the various treasures strewn about it. “When I was a kid, I would’ve done anything for you.”

“How sweet,” Pike sneers. 

“Yeah, well, the illusion died pretty quick when you, you know, killed my dad,” Kirk says. “And got your crew cursed.”

“What do you care about that?” Pike asks, and T’Pring hears a scrabbling from outside, before Chekov sticks his head into the cave. 

“They’re fighting real good outside, Captain!” he says.

“And the  _ Enterprise?”  _ Kirk asks, talking over Pike. 

“They haven’t found it yet!” Chekov says. 

“Wait a minute, what’s going on here?” Pike asks, and then he keels over, falling forward and face-planting into a pile of gold. 

“Mutiny,” Kirk says mildly. The guards holding T’Pring rush him, and he pulls out his sword. From behind where Pike had stood, a Vulcan man stands, his arm still outstretched, and he neatly sidesteps the fight, kneeling down beside T’Pring to untie her hands. She stares at him.

“Spock?” she whispers.

“T’Pring,” he says, loosening the ropes. 

“You are alive?” 

“Indeed,” he says, standing up and drawing his own sword, turning around neatly and joining Kirk’s fight, narrowly preventing him from getting an ear sliced off. 

“Thank you, my love,” Kirk says, and then he disarms one of the pirates and kicks the spare sword in T’Pring’s direction. She grabs it and joins the fray, uncertain of what’s going on. 

“You two know each other?”

“Give me a moment!” Kirk cries, charging up towards the stone chest. T’Pring watches him from the corner of her eye as he uses his sword to cut his hand and then smear the blood all the gold. “The medallion!”

Spock slices the chain in half and T’Pring catches it, throwing it towards Kirk, who catches it with his bloody hand and then slams the chest shut. T’Pring kicks Mitchell under a patch of moonlight, and he does not turn skeletal. 

His eyes grow round, and the fight is over in quick order after that. 

“Come on!” Kirk cries, running down to them. “We have to get to the  _ Enterprise  _ before Pike wakes up.”

“You won’t kill him?” T’Pring asks, and Kirk looks down at him. 

“Growing up, he raised me better than my father ever did,” he says quietly. “No. I won’t kill him. But I won’t let him have his ship, either.”

“The  _ Enterprise  _ is this way,” Spock says, and he leads them out of the cave, back the way T’Pring had entered. She finds Sulu and Chekov out by a lone dinghy. 

“We destroyed the others, just like you said,” Sulu says. 

“Did Uhura get on board?” Kirk asks as they load into the boat. 

“Aye, but she never left,” Sulu says. 

“That’s fine,” Kirk says. “Row!” 

“I cannot believe you are alive,” T’Pring says, staring at Spock. “Why did the bond break? Why was Kirk the one to break the curse?”

“I’ll explain it when we’re safe,” Kirk says, and then shoots a rueful grin at Spock, who grabs his injured hand and begins wrapping it with a strip of fabric that T’Pring thinks came from his pants. 

It’s a mirror of when T’Pring had wrapped Nyota’s hand, except then they had been alone. Even though there are witnesses, Kirk and Spock seem to be in a world of their own, and Spock finishes wrapping up Kirk’s hand with a lingering human kiss to the fabric. Kirk moves his hand to touch Spock’s face, tracing his eyebrow and cupping his cheek tenderly, and then they reach the  _ Enterprise.  _

“Who’s there?” the gruff voice of McCoy calls, and Kirk says, “Bones, it’s us!”

“Oh, joy,” McCoy says dryly, and then they raise the boat. When T’Pring gets onto the deck, she takes three steps before Nyota throws her arms around her. T’Pring hugs her back, inhaling her scent. 

“Are you hurt?” Nyota asks, pulling back. “Where’d they cut you to get your blood?”

“It wasn’t my blood,” T’Pring says. They turn to look at Kirk and Spock, both of whom are barking orders at the crewmembers.

“Listen, ladies, if you wanna get off this ship and head towards the  _ Farragut,  _ you can,” McCoy says, appearing behind them. “It’s probably a bloodbath over there, but Pike’s men are just getting used to being mortal again, and I assume the stories about Commodore Stick-Up-His-Ass are true, so he’ll probably win. You can go home.”

T’Pring looks at Nyota. Nyota looks at T’Pring. 

“Maybe later,” Nyota says, turning back to look at McCoy. “But for now, we’ll stay.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3


	8. Jim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (obligatory explanation chapter)

When they are halfway out to sea, in the middle of nowhere, no land to be seen, and the sun is half-risen, everyone operating on adrenaline or maybe shots of rum, Nyota levels Jim with a fierce look and says, “Okay, explain.”

Jim hands the wheel off to Sulu and goes down the stairs, sitting down and gesturing for Nyota and T’Pring to do the same. They sit across from him, Uhura cross-legged in her new pants, T’Pring the same, with her short skirts spread over her lap. Spock comes up behind Jim and sits next to him, their shoulders pressing together, and Jim tangles their fingers, reveling in the fact that they can  _ touch,  _ that they’re together.

“My dad found out that you needed a Vulcan to open the chest and decided a young one would be better because he thought it’d be easier to kidnap one,” Jim starts. “So we found out that Spock and T’Pring would be on the ship and intercepted them. We took Spock and headed to Risa, picked up the rest of the crew, and then Pike staged the mutiny.” He pauses, squeezing Spock’s fingers. “Spock was cursed, same as the rest of the crew, so he joined them, and we bided our time, trying to figure out how to end the curse.”

“So you’ve been planning this for eight years?” Uhura asks, mouth open. Jim shrugs, feels Spock’s mind slide against his.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he says. “Pike discovered that to end the curse, you need the blood of the bondmate of the open who opened it. Spock mentioned you, T’Pring, because he needed to gain Pike’s trust. Meanwhile, I’ve been looking for you, too, to try and keep you safe. I figured the compass could lead me back to Sha Ka Ree whenever, and I could end the curse, but then we found out about the key that would end it permanently. Spock convinced Pike to go after it, and, well, here we are.”

“I do not understand,” T’Pring says. “Why did I feel the bond break when they kidnapped you? How did you know I was alive when I thought you were dead?”

“I didn’t,” Spock says. “I hoped you were alive, although if you were dead you would have been safe from Pike. As for your first question--Jim pulled me from the water, and when we touched our minds instantly formed a t’hy’la bond, breaking our betrothal bond. I apologize for any distress I caused you, although it is Jim’s fault, not mine.”

“Hey,” Jim says, elbowing him, and Spock pretends to fall over, pulling Jim with him. “I think that’s it,” he says. “Any other questions?” 

“I thought you were carrying that single shot around to kill Pike with,” T’Pring says, pointing at Jim’s pistol. He touches it with his free hand. 

“Nah,” he says. “I lost the pistol Pike left me a long time ago.  _ This  _ is from when I got marooned by the  _ Reliant _ , and I’m saving this shot to shoot Khan in the head. But that’s a different story.” They fall quiet for a moment, Spock’s mental touch soothing Jim, and Uhura mouthing “how many times…?” before obviously deciding not to ask. 

“I can’t believe you were playing us the whole time,” Uhura says instead. 

“I was just trying to keep you guys safe,” Jim says. “I don’t like when innocents get hurt.”

“Ah, but running out on Stonn’s bloodbath was okay?”

“The military isn’t ‘innocent’ and those pirates know what they signed up for,” Jim says, and Uhura laughs. 

And that, of course, is when Chekov cries out from the crow’s nest. 

“There’s a ship!” he cries, and they turn to look, and sure enough, the  _ Farragut  _ is cresting over the horizon. 

Jim turns back around and kisses Spock full on the mouth. 

“I’m going to turn myself in,” he says. “They’ll let you and the  _ Enterprise  _ go.”

“No,” Spock says, clutching Jim’s wrists. 

“Yes,” Jim says. “You’ll be a good captain, my love, and Bones will complain but he’ll be a good first mate, too.”

“I will not allow this,” Spock says fiercely, and Jim turns to look at T’Pring with wide eyes, and she reaches out and nerve-pinches him.

Spock crumples, and Jim stands up. 

“Time to face the music,” he says sadly, and Uhura puts her hand on his shoulder sympathetically, patting him once before withdrawing, and the three of them head down to the boats.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

The day of the execution dawns bright and beautiful, and Nyota thinks sullenly that public executions are the worst thing she’s ever heard of. The drummer drums neatly and the official clears his throat and begins to read. 

“James Kirk, be it known that you have been charged, tried and convicted, for your willful commission of crimes against the state. Said crimes being numerous in quantity and sinister

in nature, the most aggrieves of which to be cited herewith. Piracy, smuggling, impersonating a person of the Orion Navy, falsifying the Prime Directive, sailing under false colors, arson, kidnapping, looting, poaching, pilfering, depravity, degradation, and general lawlessness.” 

“This is wrong,” Nyota whispers. 

“It is logical that he be held accountable for his crimes,” Stonn says, but he sounds uneasy.

Nyota spots movement in the crowd and then T’Pring appears before them. Nyota notes that she’s finally wearing pants, and also that she looks very good in them.

“Governor Uhura, Commodore Stonn….Nyota. I apologize for the inevitable disruption, but I just wanted to tell you something I should have said every day since you rescued me from the wreckage of my ship. I cherish you, Nyota.  Taluhk nash-veh k’dular.” 

“I--” Nyota starts, unsure where she’s going with that, aware of her fiance beside her. T’Pring nods neatly and then turns around, her cape flaring, and shoulders her way back into the crowd. Nyota realizes several things at once.

“I’m so hot,” she says. “I can’t breathe!”

She falls backwards in a faint, and both Stonn and her father kneel beside her, her father touching her and Stonn clearly afraid to. 

Nyota hears several sounds--the drumroll stops, hinges squeak, and T’Pring yells. She sits straight back up again, opening her eyes, and sees Kirk with the noose around his neck, the trapdoor released, and a sword under his feet, keeping him alive. T’Pring races up the steps of the gallows platform, sword in hand, and she manages to trick the executioner into cutting Kirk’s rope, and the man falls down below, landing safely on the ground. Stonn and his men  _ move,  _ and Nyota scrambles to her feet, running to join the fray. 

When she finds the center of it all, they’re up on the parapet that Nyota had fallen off of, Kirk and T’Pring pushed up to the sea, cornered by the fall on one side, and Stonn’s men on the other.

“I thought there might be some manner of escape attempt,” Stonn says cooly. “But I didn’t think it would be from you, T’Pring.”

“On our return to Yorktown I pardoned you, and this is how you repay me?” Nyota’s father asks. “By throwing your lot in with him? He is a pirate!”

“And a good man,” T’Pring says, standing up straighter. “If all I have achieved here is that

the hangman will earn two pairs of boots instead of one...so be it. My conscience will be clear.”

“You forget your place,” Stonn says. 

“It’s right here,” T’Pring says, and Nyota shoulders her way between the soldiers, standing next to T’Pring. 

“As is mine,” she says, and she links their fingers together. Stonn watches the movement, his face flushing at the implications. 

“Lower your weapons!” Nyota’s father commands. “Put them down!” Stonn nods, and the soldiers around them follow the order. “So this is where your heart truly lies? With a messenger? A woman?”

“She’s not just a messenger,” Nyota declares, looking T’Pring in the face. “She’s a pirate.”

“And that is lovely, and quite romantic,” Kirk cuts in, popping his head between the women. “But I _really_ must be going.” He backs up and stands on the parapet wall, waving. “Friends, enemies, and Stonn--this is the day you will always remember as the day you _almost_ killed Captain James T. Kirk.”

And with that, he turns and does a neat dive off the side of the wall. Nyota runs up to see him--he’s surfaced, and he’s grinning up at them, waving madly. 

“Dramatic, is he not?” T’Pring asks, and Nyota grins at her. 

“Yeah,” she says, and then she thinks,  _ that’s my captain,  _ and squeezes T’Pring’s fingers. “Ready?”

“Ready,” T’Pring says, nodding, and they jump off the wall after him together. 

When Nyota surfaces, she hears someone yell “Sail ho!” and turns up to look. Sailing into view is a familiar ship, and Nyota laughs a salty, watery laugh, and swims after Kirk, arm over arm, T’Pring right behind her. 

\-----

McCoy pulls them up into the ship, and Spock grabs Kirk by the face, bringing him into a deep kiss. 

“Do  _ not  _ do that again,” he growls, and Kirk grins. From behind him, Rand puts his coat over his shoulders, and along the other side Scotty offers Nyota a pair of pants, which she takes, grinning. Everyone watches as Kirk saunteers up to the wheel, running his hands along it. Spock stands beside him, on his right, and McCoy stands on his left. 

It looks right, Nyota thinks. 

“The  _ Enterprise  _ is yours, Captain,” Spock says, and Kirk closes his eyes for a moment to bask, and then looks up with a fierce grin. 

“On deck, you dogs! Hands to braces-- let go and haul to run free!” The crew scrambles to obey, and Nyota turns and takes T’Pring’s face in her hands, gives her a long and human kiss, and then throws her pants over her shoulder. 

“Come on,” she says, and they go to obey their new captain’s commands. 

“And now,” Kirk says softly, opening his compass and watching it spin to somewhere besides the man on his right for the first time in eight years. “Bring me that horizon.”

And the  _ Enterprise  _ sails on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i NEED everyone to know that in this chapter t'pring is wearing the exact same outfit her movie equivalent, will, is wearing during this scene. if you don't know that outfit (tho idk how you wouldn't cause it's the most iconic look of the film) here's a pic (I couldn't find a fullbody but the top half is really the only half that matters): https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3a/82/c3/3a82c3270aafe8cb7654133e2352fc50.jpg
> 
> anyway that's it! the end! if you've been reading this since day 1, thanks for sticking by me, and if you just binged all of it in 1 go now that it's done, i applaud u for that. i'd love to hear your thoughts on this fic (it's my longest one ever!)!! 
> 
> LLAP & stay safe!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! comments & kudos always enjoyed <3
> 
> also i forgot to say earlier but the entire reason i wrote this fic was because i watched the first movie and went "haha gibbs and bones are the same person" and then i went ".....wait a second" and now, 15k words later,


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